Gravedigger's Lament
by Voodoo Cannonball
Summary: COMPLETE! (Formerly "All the Pharaoh's Men") A day in the life of Agent Stephen Coke, one of CSM's triggermen when he is given an impossible task: recover stolen files from a hacker before Mulder and Scully get them. Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1 With New Author Introduction

Title: All the Pharaoh's Men

By: Voodoo Cannonball

Rated: PG-13

Category: Action, Drama

Disclaimer: I plead insanity and am therefore not responsible for anything I say or do. Having said that, everything in this universe belongs to Chris Carter, none of it is mine. Except for the stuff that is. Eh, the X-files is over, who really cares about it's copyright status anymore anyway? ;)

Spoilers: None

Setting: Early in the X-files, say season 2 or 3. Agent Coke sort of evolved as I wrote the story, but I think it's best to see him as an amalgam of Kieffer Sutherland from "24," (bad attitude), Val Kilmer is "Spartan" (attention to detail), Vincent from "Collateral" (human weaknesses), and Matt Damon from "The Bourne Identity" (supernatural physical abilities?).

Summary: Agent Coke is a hard man. He's killed men before, and he doesn't even know why. The chief gives him a job, he gets it done. That's what he gets paid for; nothing more, nothing less. But under all the glamour of being a secret agent lies this cold bit of reality: years living the life of a licensed killer can take its toll, even on the best agents. So what is one to do when given a seemingly impossible task?

Arlington, 2:15 a.m.

The golden light from a streetlamp outside filtered through the window and its half-drawn Venetian blinds, casting a dull light over the scene and illuminating the swirling dust particles that crossed its path. Steven Coke sat in the living room, silently surveying his handiwork. Laid out on the low coffee table in front of him were the guts of his disassembled service pistol, shimmering in the dull light. Next to them was a half empty bottle of Black Seal rum and a partially filled glass. Coke reached over and picked up the glass, swirling its contents before throwing his head back and finishing it off in two swallows. He grimaced as the fiery liquid slid down his throat and the warmth spread across his chest. He was going to have to slow down if he wanted to make the bottle last all night.

Replacing the glass on the table, Coke picked up an oily rag and began to rub down the slide of his pistol. He had always been very good at taking care of his weaponry. Back in basic he had never been the fastest to get his pistol reassembled, but he was always meticulous and had never once experienced a weapons failure in the field. To him, cleaning his pistol was more than just a chore. Coke had secretly enjoyed the process; the feel of the oil-slick surface of well-greased metal slipping under his fingers, the resounding clicks and snaps as each part locked back into place, the heft of the mighty killing device and the comforting way it filled his hands when he held it tight. But not anymore.

Truth be told, Coke was rapidly losing his fondness for weaponry. Where once he had enjoyed the process and the satisfaction of a job well done he now merely felt numb. Cleaning a pistol was now no more important to him than taking out the garbage or filling up the car. It, like so many other aspects of his life, simply no longer interested him. Now the only thing which consistently held his attention was the bottle, its contents, and the weekly visit to the liquor store to refill his "prescription." Deep down he knew he was rapidly becoming an alcoholic and that his job performance was starting to suffer. If this went much further it could start to have some serious implications. In his line of work people played for keeps and employers were not known for their gentle touch. Not that it would really matter much after tonight.

Coke replaced the slide on the table and refilled his glass. After taking another strong swig of liquor, he was finally ready. In fifteen seconds he had replaced the barrel, firing pin, and spring in the slide, slid the slide onto the weapon's frame and locked it together with a sharp, resounding click. After another deep drink, he pushed the magazine release button and smiled as the magazine slid out of the weapon's handle. Perfect. He was almost there.

Coke reached forward and pulled the box of nine millimeter ammunition across the table to the edge closest to him. He pushed the box's glossy lid open and reached in, savoring the cold, tubular feel of the bullets under his fingers. Pulling out a handful, Coke aligned the bullets one by one into a neat little row. The liquor had made him clumsy and it was trickier than he had imagined it would be, but he finished it just the same. After silently playing a game of ennie-meenie-miney-moe with his right index finger, he settled for the bullet in the middle. Reaching forward, he picked it up and snapped it into the magazine, then slid the magazine back into the weapon.

The glass was empty but he didn't bother to refill it. Instead, Coke grabbed the bottle by the neck and raised it to his lips. He knew he was drunk and that he would probably have a hell of a hangover in the morning, and then corrected himself. If he had a headache tomorrow morning, it wouldn't be from the alcohol. Coke laughed aloud at that particular drivel. What was he? A stupid, depressed teenager writing up crappy poetry in his "blog" and strumming pathetically on some guitar as he stabbed himself in the arm with a pen? No, he was a man and he was going to die like one. No more useless pathetic thoughts. It was time for this to end the way he wanted it to end: quietly, in private, with no-one to mourn or feel sorry for him.

Quickly, before he lost his courage, he put the bottle down, racked the slide back and thumbed off the safety. He stood up, quickly placed the muzzle to his head and closed his eyes. This would be it. And yet, somehow, he couldn't quite seem to pull the trigger. He would slowly start to squeeze, feeling his sweaty pad sliding further and further across the trigger, and then relax. Squeeze, and relax. He blinked. Sweat was dripping down across his face and into his eyes.

Well, come on, he thought. Are you gonna do this or not? Still he could not force his body to act. C'mon Steve, it's not that hard. You've killed before, this is no different. Pull it and end it. NOW!! And yet, somewhere deep inside of him a voice (perhaps his conscience, perhaps his finely honed sense of self-preservation) screamed out against it. He was drunk, he was depressed, and he needed help, there was no shame in that. All he had to do was put the gun down and-

He gasped audibly as the ear-splitting sound of a phone ringing sliced into his mind and cut off his brain's conversation instantly. Who the hell would be calling at this time of night? It was nearly 2:30 in the morning and- he knew. For a moment he stood there stupidly in his boxers and t-shirt, gun pressed to his head and wincing each time the phone rang. Part of him wanted to answer the phone. The other part wanted to just ignore it and get this over with. He was almost there! Wasn't it the fault of the man on the other end of the line that he was in this situation? Wasn't it HIS fault that he was within an inch of taking his own life in his tiny suburban apartment? Instinct, however, proved to be too strong for his desire. He put the gun back down on the table and staggered over to pick up the phone.

"Yeah?" he asked in his raspy, alcohol-tinged slur.

"Coke. We need you. There's a situation that requires your urgent attention," came the even, nicotine-flavored voice on the other end of the line. Coke could almost smell the Marlboros through the receiver. "Same place, half an hour."

"Make in forty-five," replied Coke.

"See you in a half hour, Coke. Don't be late." The line went dead.

Coke replaced the receiver in its cradle. Great, he thought to himself. He looked back over his shoulder at the place where he had almost killed himself and was struck by how pathetic the scene was. Just great. He hesitated for a split second before sliding the magazine out of his weapon and pulling back the slide, ejecting the round. This would just have to wait until later.


	2. Chapter 2

D.O.E Headquarters, 3:08 a.m.  
  
Coke walked down the harshly-lit corridor, his footsteps resounding like gunshots on the polished floor. He was a little late, but that was to be expected. Even with little traffic the drive from his appartment to the Department of Energy building in Washington, D.C. would have taken at least twenty-five minutes. It had been all he could do to throw on some clothes and grab his briefcase on his way ou the door. Even so, he must have presented quite a sight: unshaven, his unkempt blond hair mashed every which way, reeking of alcohol. Fotunately the security guard at the front desk was not interested in harassing him and let him pass without so much as second glance at his indentification. It was unlikely that the man knew who Coke was, much less what he actually did. In any case, Coke's comings and goings were so erratic and the guard shifts rotated so often that it was unlikely that this particular guard would even remember him in a half hour. That was the way it usually was with faceless government agencies.  
  
Coke found it supremly ironic that an organization such as his would fall under the umbrella of the DOE. Most civilians probably wouldn't be able to identify what DOE:IN stood for, much less what it did. The lucky few who correctly guessed that it was the Department of Energy's Office of Intelligence probably believed that the bespectacled agents spent their time analyzing sattelite photos of Iraq and North Korea and tracking shipments of uranium, not guarding all of the government's dirty little secrets. Coke himself was smart enough not to ask too many questions about the significance of his work. It was of course inevitable that some of the secrets would leak through. He had seen enough things in the five years since he had joined the DOE: IN to last a lifetime. Things he couldn't explain, things he couldn't believe. Things he generally wished he could forget.   
  
How many people had he already killed? There were those three he knew about for sure. He had been close enough to smell the salty tang of their sweat as they died, hear the almost inaudible gasps they made as their souls took flight. He gathered from snippets of conversations and what some of his coworkers had said over the past years that he had probably been responsible for at least two or three more, but who knew? He never would really know how many people he had sentanced to death by bugging their phones, taking their photographs, or filing his reports. He didn't really want to know. He just did what the chief told him and that was enough.  
  
The office of the man known only as "the chief" was dark save for a single lamp in the back corner of the room. Coke doubted that was the chief's actual office. He was hardly ever there and when he was, he was always meeting with somebody. In any case, noone seemed to know much about him, other that he had been in charge longer than anyone could remember and that noone really knew his name. Somehow Coke didn't think he was ever harassed by the security guards or the janitors who had to clean out his ashtray.   
  
The door was partially ajar, but Coke knew he was in there. Still, he knocked. No response. After a brief pause, he gently pushed the door open and walked in, closing the door behind him.  
  
"You wanted to see me." It wasn't a question, but a statement. Coke hoped he didn't sound too drunk or tired. He didn't particularly care what the chief thought of his personal life one way or another, but he didn't want him thinking that he was losing his edge. That would be fatal.  
  
The chief sat in the shadows, reclining in his plush leather chair and puffing on a cigarette. The ashtray on the table had at three flaky cigarette stumps planted in it already so he had clearly been there for some time. Coke was no longer surprised he could get away with it. The federal government had a strict no-smoking policy in any of its buildings and yet the chief kept at it. It was pretty obvious he was the sort of person who could do whatever he pleased. Finally he broke the silence.  
  
"You're late," he said, his tone calm and accusing at the same time. Coke, although loyal to his masters, had long ago lost patience with this particular boss' smarmy and condescending remarks.  
  
"Yeah, well it's late. What did you expect?"  
  
"I don't like your tone." The voice stayed clam and even, but the smarmyness was gone and had been replaced with a cold, hard edge.  
  
"I don't like being called out of bed at two-thirty in the morning and having to haul my butt out here at the drop of a hat. Everybody has their problems," Coke replied. He knew the boss wouldn't appreceate his attitude, but he was beyond caring at this point.  
  
The chief was silent. If he was angry, his face betrayed no emotion. He sat back in his chair and exhaled a thin cloud of blue smoke which added another layer to the growing haziness of the room. Finally he leaned forward and snubbed out the cigarette. With a fluid rapidity that so often caught people unaware, he changed the subject. "Sit down Steven. We have a situation on our hands. I want you to deal with it." Coke interpreted this as a good sign. At least he had stood up to the chief. Sometimes that endeared you to him. Or at least whatever passed for endearment in the tobacco-stained, carcinogenic universe he inhabited. Coke sat down in the chair opposite the boss' desk.  
  
The chief reached into his blazer suit pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of Marlboros. "About an hour ago I got a call from Agent Maxey at Fort Meade. Do you know who I'm talking about?" Coke nodded. Fort Meade was among other things the location of the NSA's headquarters. Coke had never worked with Agent Maxey, but he had met him once or twice. He seemed like he had his act together.  
  
The chief pulled a cigarette out of the packet with his lips and picked up the lighter next to the ashtray on the table. "Maxey tells me there's been a leak in the computer system." He thumbed the button down on his lighter and applied the hissing blue flame to the end of the cigarette as he began to draw rythmically, inhaling the smoke. When he was satisfied, he tossed the lighter back down onto the table with a dull thunk and removed the cigarette from his mouth, exhaling as he did so.  
  
"What kind of a leak?" asked Coke, his curiosity piqued.  
  
"A bad one," came the immediate reply. "The kind that dresses in torn blue jeans, wears anarchist t-shirts and enjoys hacking into protected security systems." Coke whistled. Hacking into the NSA's computer network was not unheard of but it was extremely difficult. However, that alone was not enough to attract the chief's attention. No, it must have been much more important that that if they were calling his agency in.  
  
"What did he get into?" The chief's eyes narrowed.   
  
"She. It's a her." That was a surprise. Coke had always imagined hackers as generic "hes." The chief continued. "Nothing, so far. Although she managed to hack into the system, the techs were paying attention for once and were able to interrupt the upload in mid-feed. The information on every one of the systems she was trying to access requires a level-five clearance and thus has a class alpha digital encryption. Without a cypher, the information is indecipherable."   
  
Something didn't make sense. If the information was useless, why was the DOE:IN getting involved? All the NSA had to do was send in the local cops and arrest the girl. If it was the principle of the matter, fine, send the NSA in. But why get Coke involved? Ultimately this was for appearance sake. If the girl posed no threat, why risk unnecessary exposure? Coke was about to speak but the chief cut him off.  
  
"I know what you're thinking Coke. Why are we wasting your time and considerable talents on such an apparently trifling matter?" he mused, snubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray. "I'll tell you. As stupid as it sounds, the NSA doesn't have backup copies of these documents. The girl didn't just download and copy them, he TOOK them and they are currently in her posession. I don't think I need to tell you how important it is that we get this matter under control and recover our property quickly, before more damage is done."  
  
Coke was stunned. This was not the first time he had been tasked with recovering government property, but it was the first time he had been forced to recover something digital which had actually, quite literally, been stolen. The chief quietly lit another cigarette.  
  
"You look puzzled Agent Coke. Is there a problem?" This brough Coke out of his reverie.  
  
"No sir, there's no problem," he replied, scratching his chin absentmindedly. "It's just that...in this digital day and age I though people made copies of everything. I've never had to recover digital information because someone stole our only copy." The chief chuckled.  
  
"Well, Coke, there's a first time for everything, isn't there?"  
  
"I guess," replied Coke sheepishly, annoyed that he had been caught off guard by a man he truly disliked. "So, when do I start?" he asked, eager to change the subject. The chief exhaled slowly, reaching into his top drawer as he did so.  
  
"Tonight," he answered, his voice devoid of emotion. The chief pulled out a standar manilla envalope and slid it across the table. "Everything you need is in there. Names, adresses, money. You know what to do."  
  
"What are my parameters?" asked Coke, sizing up the situation. He could have sworn he saw the boss hesitate before answering.  
  
"You have a green light Coke. This is your new top priority. I don't acre how you pull this off, but make sure it's clean. Recover the documents in 48 hours or there'll be hell to pay."  
  
"What about the target?"   
  
There was no hesitation this time. "Green light, Coke. Terminate her. It's safer that way."  
  
And with that the boss stood up, extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray, and walked out of the office, leaving Coke alone with his thoughts 


	3. Chapter 3

Arlington, 4:36 a.m.  
  
The drive back to his apartment seemed much shorter than the drive into Washington had been. Traffic on I-395 was still fairly light, but the even now at this early hour it was growing noticeably heavier as the early-morning morning commuters began yet another weekday. Fortunately, most of the traffic was heading into the city instead of out, so Coke had a fairly easy time getting back to his apartment.  
  
Coke pulled into his parking spot just in time to see Mrs. Padgett (his next door neighbor) walking out the lobby's front door with a decidedly sleepy-looking Martin in tow. Mrs. Padgett was a sweet grandmother who, rain or shine, could be counted on to haul her Pekinese out for an early-morning walk every day at 4:30 prompt. Coke liked her well enough, but didn't much care for the way she tended to prattle on and on about her grandchildren if given the slightest opportunity. Still, she was kind enough to hold the door for him.  
  
"Good morning Mr. Coke," she crooned sweetly, gently tugging on Martin's leash. The dog gave a decidedly glum sounding moan.  
  
"Morning Mrs. Padgett," Coke mumbled, sliding past her as quickly as possible, hoping to avoid having to actually talk to the old woman.  
  
"Say, Mr. Coke, did I tell you about Timmy's science test the other day?" she continued, oblivious to the fact that Coke was obviously trying very much to avoid her without being overly rude. "He got a B+ on his science test last week," she beamed. "Isn't that wonderful? Turns out he wants to be a scientist, just like you someday!" She gave Coke a coquettish little glance. "I've told him all about you. You and your big job at the Department of Geology." Coke felt as though he was about to vomit. How many times had he told her he worked for the Department of Energy? He never forgot any of the facts about Timmy she rained on him at every opportunity. Still, he maintained his composure.  
  
"That's very nice Mrs. Padgett," he said, emphasizing the word nice. "You have a great day now, you hear?" And with that, Coke let the door slide shut. Mrs. Padgett was already beginning to follow him and was opening her mouth to say more, but before she had the chance Coke was already up the flight of stairs and had disappeared around the corner.  
  
People like Mrs. Padgett irked him. Still, she was a sweet old thing and she made great pie. Although Coke didn't really dislike her per se, he was an intensely private person and didn't like to be bothered when he was on a job. She of course had no way of knowing that. To her he was just another pencil-necked number-cruncher at the Department of Geology (whatever the hell that was). If she actually had any inkling of what he actually did for a living, she'd probably die from a heart attack right there on the spot. If he managed to get a word in at all that was, between Timmy's latest school project, her trip down to Cancun and Martin's latest slipper-chewing incident. Oh well, there was no more time to waste. The chief had made it very clear that this assignment was time-sensitive. Fumbling for his keys, he unlocked the door to his apartment and slipped in, sliding home the deadbolt as soon as he closed the door.  
  
The first thing to come off was the tie. Coke pulled the knot loose and threw it onto the sofa before he turned on the light. The sun would be up before long, but he had to get to work immediately. Almost unconsciously he reached for the bottle laying on the coffee table from a few hours earlier. However, before his baser instincts took hold, Coke reminded himself that he was now officially on the job and instead of raising the bottle to his lips, he walked into the kitchenette and placed it in the sink. He was already starting to develop a headache from the booze and the lack of sleep, but he would have to get some rest later. He loaded up the coffee maker instead and began to brew himself a pot before heading into the dining room. A little caffeine was just what the doctor ordered.  
  
Coke sat down at the dining room table and took off his blazer, loosening the top button of his shirt at the same time. There. Now he was fully comfortable and finally ready to get to work. The place was a mess, but it had seen worse and would survive a little longer, which was more than he could say for his target. Snapping open his briefcase, Coke slipped out the envelope it contained. It was a standard government envelope, manila in color with the words "CLASSIFIED" stamped across it in red ink. It was extremely thick and fairly heavy for its size. Coke ran his finger under the tab and, as neatly as he could, ripped open the top of the envelope. Reaching deep into the envelope, he pulled out its contents and spread them out across the table.  
  
The first thing which caught his eye was the thick stack of money held together by two rubber bands. Coke realized that was what had been making the envelope so heavy. Coke had been on dozens of missions for the chief before, but this was the first time he had been given that much money to handle. It made sense of course. Paying for everything in cash would attract less attention and not leave a paper trail of any kind that could be followed. True, paying for a plane ticket or a hotel bill in cash might attract some attention, but he had government identification and a badge. Coke was satisfied there wouldn't be too many questions. Coke would count the money later. First things first.  
  
Coke glanced at the first of three printed pages which had been stapled together. It was a standard government coversheet, placed on top of all classified documents to prevent casual observers from reading the memo. On it were once again stamped the words "CLASSIFIED- NOT FOR PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION" in bright red ink. Underneath that was the eagle and key seal of the NSA.   
  
Coke turned to the next page. It appeared to be a standard government memorandum. The date was printed in the top right hand corner with the time. Coke was impressed. If the timestamp was to be believed, the memo had been written within a half hour of the incident taking place. Coke sat back and began to digest the information.  
  
It was clear, concise, and to-the-point. At approximately midnight, techs on duty at Fort Meade detected a break-in attempt on servers 698, 699, and 701, all level-five systems. The techs responded and attempted to lock the hacker out. Within two minutes they had contained the leak and had consolidated the systems. However, before they were able to regain control of the system, there was a period of about thirty seconds during which the system was vulnerable. The techs were able to run a system diagnostic and determined that approximately eight files had been taken from the database. At this point Agent Maxey was alerted and brought into the office. After further consultation with his superiors he had contacted the DOE for assistance.   
  
Somehow Coke felt that the consultation had been just a formality. He was willing to bet money the chief had been the first person the head of the NSA had called when the break-in was detected. A mere three hours later, they were bringing him in to solve the problem. That alone indicated the severity of the situation. Coke was pleased. Apparently he was more important to the chief than he had thought. Coke stood up and poured himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen before returning to the dining room and continuing the memo.  
  
Generally it appeared that the hacker had been very careful, masking her identity at a level completely out of the ordinary for a mere teen hacker. However, the NSA techs had been on the ball for once and had managed to track her signal down before it had gone dead. It was established that the hacker in question was named Christine Kiviat, a 22 year-old, currently unemployed sometime student known online in hacker communities as "Redux." Coke took a sip of coffee as he turned to the final page in the memo. On it was a grainy black and white photo of a fairly pretty, bespectacled girl. Under it was listed her vital information. She had no previous criminal convictions, but she had been questioned on two previous occasions by the FBI in connection with the defacing of a Republican party website and bank fraud. Charges were never brought in both cases. Her last known address was listed as an apartment in Baltimore.   
  
Coke refilled his cup and sat back, slowly digesting this information. On the surface it wouldn't be too tricky. She lived in an apartment and thus was probably living either alone or with a roommate. Baltimore was about an hour to an hour and a half away, depending on traffic. Time was of the essence of course, so he had to get moving. The fact that the attack had been clearly planned long in advance and well-executed suggested that Kiviat herself had been at the helm and that she was paying attention, not just sleeping while running a program. Thus she would know that they knew about her and would send somebody. Of course, there was no telling what her reaction might be. If she thought she had gotten away clean, she might just stay at home and try to figure out what the exactly the files were by running a program or two on them. Despite her obvious dislike of the government and the generally paranoid disposition of most hackers, Coke felt that it was unlikely she would just pack out and leave immediately. She was, after all, a civilian and bound to be sloppy. Most hackers tended to have a generally low opinion of law enforcement capacities and bureaucracies. As far as she knew, the guys at the NSA were still trying to figure out exactly what the hell was going on, much less that they were already sending someone for her. Coke chuckled. For all their self-absorbed paranoia that never amounted to anything, just this once they had reason to be afraid. In any case, the worst the girl was probably expecting was a slap on the wrist after a long, drawn-out legal battle ending in a plea bargain. Little did she know Coke was now on her case. Coke emptied his cup and checked his watch. It was a quarter past five. Time to get the kit together and check in with the chief. In twenty-four hours Christine Kiviat would be lucky if she was still breathing.   
  
***  
  
Thanks for the feedback folks! I've changed the settings at the suggestion of gothicspook so that now everyone can comment. Let me know how you like it! 


	4. Chapter 4

Outside Columbia, Maryland, 5:46 a.m.  
  
The dark autumn horizon which had been threatening rain all morning came through as promised. Under the leaden sky a thick, heavy drizzle had settled over southern Maryland, obscuring the foothills and slowing traffic on I-495 to a crawl. Coke leaned back in his seat and adjusted the speed on his windshield wipers for the umpteenth time since he had left his apartment a half hour earlier. Why was the beltway always like this at this time of day? Lost in his thoughts, he was almost caught flat-footed when a hulking pickup abruptly cut into his lane without so much as using its blinkers. Startled, he applied pressure to the breaks and heard the satisfying sizzle of his tires on the wet pavement as he brought his Mercury Grand Marquis to a stiff halt. Out of the mist ahead of him the looming red brake lights from the pickup truck filled his windshield like a pair of hot red eyes, bathing the hood of his car in a dull, ruddy glow. Coke stifled the urge to honk at the moron, and instead reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out his notepad.  
  
Although he had started with a fresh pad this morning, the little spiral notebook was already rapidly filling up with Coke's characteristic scrawl. This was where he liked to do most of his work, the formulation and brainstorming that would ultimately gel into a relatively solid plan. Reaching into his pocket, Coke pulled out a black government issue ballpoint pen and, assuring himself that traffic had not moved on with a quick upwards glance, flipped the pad open to the page where he had left off. Already he had laid out the gist of what he hoped would be a fairly straightforward project. This would have been fairly easy for anyone who had graduated from any reputable military or police academy, but Coke had been at his trade long enough to know that more often than not, most plans were useless the minute they were put into effect. Thus, relying on his years of instinct and conditioning, he had only assembled the barest skeleton of his course of action.   
  
Coke's first step would be to check out the girl's apartment. If she was still there, then it was a done deal. All he would have to do would be swoop in, grab her, recover the data, and then eliminate her. Depending on how much of a struggle the girl put up, he could be out of there, data in hand, and heading south back to Washington just in time for a late breakfast. If she put up a struggle though, or if she wasn't home (as might be the case; Coke put the odds at fifty-fifty), things were liable to get a bit more complicated. Of course if she was smart she-  
  
The blaring of what sounded like a submarine klaxon wrenched Coke away from his notepad and back into the present. Ahead of him traffic had started to move and the pickup was already twenty yards ahead with another car getting ready to make its move into the gap. Coke jammed his foot on the gas and flew forward, cutting off the would-be cutter to the howl of the other driver's horn and once again slammed on the breaks just in time to avoid rear-ending the pickup in front of him who had abruptly stopped again as traffic ground to a halt.  
  
Coke exhaled a long, lamented sigh and was about to return to his notepad when a familiar chirping sound grabbed his attention. Reaching down into his pants pocket, Coke pulled out his cell phone and opened it. The thumbed the call button just as the fourth chirp was about to go off.   
  
"You're getting slow," the nicotine voice greeted him. "Is everything all right?"  
  
Coke was in no mood for a long discussion, although he was now more awake than he had been the last time they had spoken.  
  
"Yeah, everything's fine. What's the situation?"  
  
There was a momentary pause on the other end of the line before the boss spoke.  
  
"I have some bad news for you, Stephen," he said, sounding annoyed and yet in control at the same time. "Kiviat has jumped ship on us."  
  
Stephen let out a sigh of frustration. Oh well, he knew this might happen.  
  
"Thanks for the heads-up chief. Anything else I can help you with?" he smiled, relishing his condescending tone. If the chief noticed, he didn't let show.  
  
"Actually, you can't help me. But you might be able to help yourself. A word of advice: the FBI has been alerted."  
  
Coke's jaw dropped. A (soon to be wanted) felon had actually contacted the FBI…for help? What was this?  
  
"What's going on, chief?" Coke asked, unsure of how to proceed. FBI involvement could make the situation a whole lot trickier. "Is she trying to cut a plea bargain or something?"   
  
"No, Stephen. This has nothing to do with that." Another pause. Coke thought he heard the flick of a lighter in the background. And then "She's contacted Mulder, Coke."  
  
Mulder? Damn. There goes my easy recovery, thought Coke to himself, bitterness washing over him. The boss continued.  
  
"Agent Mulder has been a thorn in our side for quite some time, Stephen. I am growing quite sick of his meddling. However, the information that Kiviat has is encrypted. As far as we know Mulder and his partner don't even have the data yet. We just know that Kiviat left him a voicemail message at the Bureau. Why she chose to contact him we can't say just yet, but we have a pretty good idea what he's going to want to do with it once he hears from her. One way or another, he'll be getting into the office soon, so you've got to work fast. Is that understood?"  
  
"Yes sir," Coke responded. The other end of the line went dead. Coke snapped his phone shut and slipped it back into his pocket. Coke felt the salty tang of rage slowly crawling up his spine and into his brain. Just leave it to that idiotic Agent Mulder to make things difficult. Oh well, Coke thought to himself, forcing his hands to relax their grip on the wheel. He had faced plenty of things far tougher than Agent Mulder in his day, that was for sure. X-files or no, Kiviat was going down. He eased up on the break and let his car crawl forward as the traffic ahead began to move. 


	5. Chapter 5

White Marsh, Maryland, 7:01 a.m.  
  
By the time Coke arrived in the pleasant Baltimore suburb of White Marsh, he had sufficiently recovered from his initial surprise to turn his attention back to the immediate problem at hand: Christine Kiviat. He had been careful to mark out the address from his file in bold yellow highlighter and had checked the directions thoroughly on mapquest, familiarizing himself with Kiviat's neighborhood. He didn't expect to have a particularly difficult time of the assignment but ever since he had been alerted to the fact that Mulder was on the case, he had decided to be a little more cautious. Coke knew from hard experience that it didn't pay to take chances and as far as he was concerned, official meddling on the part of the FBI was reason enough to use extra caution.  
  
Coke had never had to deal with Mulder personally; for that matter he hardly knew anything about him, other than the usual snippets of barroom conversation with his friends and coworkers after hours. Generally the brass frowned down on this sort of fraternization between coworkers, viewing it as a potential security breach. Indeed, it had been hard enough for Coke to make any friends at the Department of Energy: he hardly saw anybody long enough to really get to know them. He assumed that it was standard policy to rotate agents as often as possible in order to ensure none of them ever got to talking together. However, the little that Coke did know about Mulder was not encouraging. The agent apparently had a particular fondness for unusual cases and was certainly not above breaking protocol when he felt the situation warranted it. Why Kiviat would decide to contact Mulder made little sense to Coke. From what Coke knew, Mulder was the sort of guy who never really got involved in a case unless it had some sort of paranormal angle to it. Of course, it was always possible that the data Kiviat had managed to grab involved some sort of hush-hush data involving a super-secret government project or another. Coke took all such allegations with a healthy sense of skepticism of course, but just the same his façade of indifference had begun to crack. Coke had never actually seen anything extraordinary himself, with the exception of a few lights in the sky that time he had been assigned to the Oregon office, but at the same time, he wasn't altogether ready to dismiss it out of hand. One way or another, the brass provided their own explanations and Coke knew better than to ask too many questions, no matter how ludicrous those explanations might be. In any case, this assignment appeared to be utterly devoid of any potential UFO encounters. Unless of course Kiviat herself happened to be an alien in disguise. The thought made him chuckle aloud, but it was a nervous chuckle just the same.  
  
The town of White Marsh was a fairly standard American suburb as far as Coke could tell: prosperous, fairly small, predominantly white, and full of trees and grassy open spaces. The drizzle had largely cleared up during his drive up north, although the sky remained overcast and gray. Traffic was a little heavy as Coke drove through town, but that was to be expected as more and more people left home to drive to their jobs in Baltimore or Washington. It would undoubtedly clear up soon, and then the place would be deserted. Kiviat's apartment (or was it a townhouse? Coke didn't feel the term apartment really did it justice) was a modest if pretty red brick building on the wooded outskirts of town. The area immediately behind it was the Honeygo Run Park, the map informed him. Coke drove past the apartment building and parked his car along the curb a few blocks up and over. While he certainly could have parked in the open across the street from the apartment building, he didn't want to risk the exposure. In a small town like this one, a car with DC plates parked in such a conspicuous location would be sure to attract unwanted attention. While Coke had government identification, a routine stop by a local police officer would effectively end his mission early.  
  
Coke pulled up to the side of the road and unclipped his seatbelt, turning off the ignition as he did so. He took a deep breath and flipped open his notebook, checking over his plan one more time. Once he was satisfied that everything was in order, Coke opened the door and stepped out onto the curb. Now that he had finalized his plan of attack and was ready to put it in motion, Coke was oddly enough at peace. The hard part was over. Now all that remained was to get Kiviat, recover the data, and make his escape. Coke checked his watch. It was 7:18. Mulder had probably just gotten into the office and was checking his messages. Good. In terms of driving time alone, that gave Coke at least an hour and a half head-start.  
  
Looking both ways to make sure no one was in a position to see him, Coke reached under his trench coat and jacket and delicately eased his service pistol out of its holster. It was a standard government-issue SIG pistol, 12 rounds of .40 cal ammunition leaded and ready to go. Looking both ways again Coke reached into his trench coat pocket for the leather case he knew was in there. Once his fingers found it, he pulled it out and undid the snap, sliding the long, blued silencer out of its sheath. He briefly toyed with the idea of screwing it on then and there, but he thought the better of it, fully knowing that the extra length on the weapon would not only make it harder to draw but more noticeable. Instead, he slid the attachment into his pants pocket. Coke racked back the slide on the weapon, chambering the first round with a satisfying click. Thumbing the safety to make sure it was still set, he slide the pistol back into the clip-on leather holster at his waist and adjusted his coat and jacket.  
  
It took Coke less than five minutes to get to the front of the building. "Clinton Gardens Apartments" read the sign at the front door. He glanced up to ensure there were no security cameras in place. Confirming that there were indeed none, he then proceeded to try the front door. To his dismay (but not his surprise), he found that the heavy glass door was locked and required a key card to gain entry. Below the key card slot was a callbox with the words "For Superintendent's Office, Please Press 0."  
  
Coke looked around. A few blocks down the street he could make out smallish house with a sign reading "Clinton Gardens Apartments, Inc." posted in front of it. That had to be the enterprise's headquarters. At this time of the morning, the night attendant was probably just finishing up his shift, Coke mused. This could be a pleasant surprise.  
  
He quickly punched the button marked 0 and after a brief pause a young, sleepy-sounding voice answered. "Clinton Gardens Apartments. This is Matt. How can I help you?"  
  
"Hi," Coke replied, trying his best to sound like a flustered and slightly embarrassed businessman. "I'm here at building-" he glanced up, "- building 2B and I'm late for a meeting, but I'm afraid I left my briefcase with my key card inside. I was wondering-"  
  
Before he was even able to finish his sentence, the door buzzed loudly. Coke quickly pulled it open and walked in, calling out what he hoped was a grateful-sounding "Thank you" at the callbox, well aware of the fact that the attendant had probably clicked off before even unlocking the door for him.  
  
Coke pulled the notepad out of his pocket to confirm the address: Suite 308, Clinton Gardens Apartments, Building 2B. Suite 308, Coke thought to himself. That would make it the top floor. Coke refolded the now thoroughly creased yellow sheet and slid it into his shirt pocket. Cracking his knuckles, he made his way towards the closest stairwell. 


	6. Chapter 6

Suite 308, Clinton Gardens Apartments, 7:35 a.m.  
  
Building 2B wasn't particularly large for an apartment complex, and for that Coke was thankful. As soon as he crested the landing, he immediately took note of the floor's layout. What he saw reassured him. The staircase fed out into the middle of the floor for maximum convenience. Suite 308 was in the back right corner of a fairly long corridor. The stairs continued to lead upwards; to an attic Coke surmised. A quick glance up the stairwell confirmed as much. Good. That additional flight of stairs would provide useful cover for him should he for whatever reason need to duck out of sight.  
  
Coke briskly stepped out of the landing and out into the hallway. He knew almost without thinking that the besides the fire escape at the opposite end of the hall, the stairs he had just climbed were the only way in or out. The hall was dimly lit at this hour. The lights' photosensitive switches had long since ticked off as the sun began to rise, but the light trickling in through the fire escape window was barely adequate, especially considering the overcast sky.  
  
Coke paused momentarily to take in the situation. He had long ago learned to rely largely on intuition before all else. His academy training, coupled with his already fine survival instincts and honed to a razor edge by years of assignments, close calls, near misses and split- second gun battles for the smoking man had saved his ass many times before and would no doubt continue to serve him well for the next few years (or so he hoped). A slight headache was beginning to buzz around his temples. He pushed it aside and focused on the hallway. For perhaps five seconds he remained absolutely motionless. Specks of dust flared briefly in the shafted light and blinked out. The hallway carpet had a few minor stains on it and was probably due for a cleaning soon. His nostrils flared as he scented the faint, curdled lemon odor of Pinesol or some other industrial cleaner. The hall was silent. Well, almost. He thought he could make out the distant sound of a music coming from a few doors down. He instinctively knew that someone was home, although he doubted they would be a problem. The lights were out under the other doors.  
  
These and thousands of other seemingly trivial details were inhaled, processed, categorized, distilled, and summarized in fractions of milliseconds on the lower, more basic levels of Coke's brain, hovering on the unconscious level. The only thing that mattered was the signal his Superego received from his Id and sensory cortex: threat assessment completed, danger is negligible. We are a go.  
  
Quickly, Coke headed to the far wall and glided up the hall, his feet automatically slipping into the trained footsteps of one who has been conditioned to kill silently and well. The action was as natural as breathing and Coke no longer even thought about it. Within seconds he was beside the door of suite 308. There was no obvious light coming from under the door. Coke readied himself and, sliding his hand as far out as caution permitted, knocked on the door with three loud raps. No answer.  
  
Coke waited a full minute before trying again, listening intently. While it was unlikely that Kiviat (if she was even in there) would answer the door, the question of whether or not she was in would be largely answered by any noises coming from the other side and any change in the peephole. After another minute had clicked by, Coke decided to make entry.  
  
Reaching deep into his pocket, Coke slid out his electronic lock pick and went to work. Although loud, the lock pick was the quickest way to gain entry and he doubted anyone left on the floor would even hear it, much less notice. He slid the pick into the lock and thumbed the switch. After a few ratting whirrs, the door clicked and he withdrew the pick.  
  
The sight which greeted his eyes was discouraging, but what he had expected. The room was dark (the blinds had been drawn) and smelled of wilted flowers. Clothes, papers, books, computer cables: everything could be found spread across the apartment floor. A quick glance around the apartment merely confirmed what he had known almost before arriving in town: Kiviat was long gone.  
  
Coke closed the door behind him and immediately headed towards the most private room in the apartment: the bedroom. Coke turned on his flashlight. He couldn't risk turning on the lights or opening the shades. The former would arouse suspicion in anyone who might happen across him as he worked, the latter might alert someone to his presence. For all he knew, Christine Kiviat was just getting coffee a few blocks away and might notice her blinds up.  
  
Immediately, Coke began to reprioritize his objectives. Eliminating Kiviat was (and always had been) a secondary consideration. Her flight was frustrating but not unexpected. She was after all a wanted felon and could expect the authorities to come after her in the next 48 hours. On the plus side, the fact that Kiviat had fled the scene suggested that she had taken the files with her somehow. No one would be so stupid as to jump town and leave their most valuable asset or gambling chip behind. The only questions now were 1) where she was and 2) where the data was hidden. The latter question was predicated upon the answer to the first, as she almost certainly had the data on her and as such it would have to be man-portable. He wondered...  
  
Flashing the powerful, thin beam of light across the Kiviat's bedroom. It immediately rested on the desk in the back corner, beside the bed. Although it was covered with cables, wires, a lamp, a printer, and a blinking modem, it was missing one crucial component.  
  
Coke was interrupted in mid-thought by an angry, buzzing vibration in his breast pocket. He cursed himself mentally for allowing himself to get lost in his thoughts and pulled out his phone.  
  
"Coke."  
  
"Give me a status update Stephen." Coke glanced around the room, allowing the beam of light from his flashlight to dance off the various picture frames in the room.  
  
"I've made entry," he responded in a clipped, businesslike tone. "Target is not present at her last known address. Preliminary search indicates the data is with the target and is no longer at the apartment."  
  
"How do you know?" the voice was even, tinged with a slight hint of curiosity. Stephen felt adrenaline course through his veins.  
  
"Because her laptop is gone. There are easier ways to store data, if that was all she cared about. She could have uploaded it onto a palm pilot or burned it onto a CD. Instead she took the whole damn computer."  
  
"Are you sure?" Coke thought for a minute.  
  
"No, I'm not sure," he replied, resignation in his voice. "I imagine that it's possible she burned the data onto a CD and hid it here or elsewhere in the hopes of recovering it later. She could also have sent it to someone else online. However, under the circumstances I feel this is-"  
  
"-highly unlikely, I know," the boss cut him off. "It is the opinion of my colleagues and I that she is running scared. Otherwise she would not have called Mulder for help." Another pause as he inhaled another puff from his cigarette. A long silence followed. Coke was unsure what to say and was about to speak when the boss spoke again.  
  
"Coke, this is what I want you to do. Find Kiviat at all costs. She must not be allowed to make contact with Mulder, is that understood?"  
  
"Understood sir." Coke played his flashlight beams across the room, hoping to gleam something of use while still paying attention to his boss.  
  
"One more thing Stephen. You remember how I mentioned Mulder earlier this morning?"  
  
"Uh-huh,"Coke mumbled in the affirmative.  
  
"Well, just in case you were wondering, sources at the Hoover building have informed me that Mulder and his partner got Kiviat's message. All signs indicate that he has taken the case and, while not aware of the full implications of this...affair, he does seem to be giving Kiviat a high priority. There is only so much I can do to keep him off the trail. One way or another, I'd say you have until 2 p.m. before Mulder makes contact with her and the data is lost."  
  
"You got it sir." The phone clicked off.  
  
Coke closed the phone and stifled a sigh. Just great. He had until 2? Glancing down at his watch, Coke could see it was a little after 8:00. That gave him less than 6 hours to find Kiviat, a task which seemed nearly impossible. All the while his headache seemed to be getting worse. Where would he even start? He had no idea where Kiviat even was, and sitting around her apartment waiting for her to return when she already had the data with her was not something he could waste time on.  
  
Coke slowly replayed all the possible scenarios in his head. Kiviat. Kiviat was gone. Kiviat had the data. Ergo, the data was gone. Mulder wanted to see Kiviat and Kiviat wanted to see Mulder, presumably to give the data to him. The big question of course was just how and when the two were going to come into contact. Kiviat had contacted Mulder, he knew that for sure. Therefore, Mulder would try to contact Kiviat back sometime soon, if he hadn't already. And contact without the internet meant...  
  
The beam from Coke's flashlight flew across the room and landed on the living room coffee table. On it was an answering machine with 1 read message on it. Coke smiled to himself. Bingo! This might not turn out to be such a bad morning after all.  
  
Thanks for the reviews guys, and keep it coming! Things have just started to get interesting, and seeing how Coke has just 6 hours to get Kiviat, things are coming to a head real soon. I have the ending mostly planned out, but if you want to give me suggestions or feedback, feel free by e- mailing me at mllautwm.edu mailto:mllautwm.edu Thanks! 


	7. Chapter 7

8:15 a.m.  
  
Coke walked over to the answering machine, carefully picking his way across the scattered clothes littering the floor. As a precaution he slipped on a pair of latex surgical gloves. He knew that the odds he would leave a single fingerprint behind were low, and he knew for a fact that no database in the world had his prints on file. They had either been erased, modified, or conveniently lost over the course of the years. The tendrils of the smoking man reached deep, but just the same, it would be foolish to press his luck. The man for whom he worked could just as soon unmake him as he had promoted him.  
  
He pushed the "Play Message" button in the center of the machine and winced at how loud it sounded in the thick silence of the room.  
  
"Message ONE...left...THURsday-November 8th..at...six-fourty-fiVE...a.m." the machine's cold voice chirped at him.  
  
The voice on the message was unfamiliar to Coke, but then again, he had never heard Mulder's voice before. It was prefaced by a pause and punctuated by the sounds of rustling paper and, in the distance, the clicking of a keyboard.  
  
"Hey this message is for Christine," the message began haltingly, as if the speaker was trying to do several things at once. It was a fairly young sounding voice, although Coke felt the it sounded fairly intelligent, if a bit sheepish. It continued. "This is Agent Mulder. I...um...got your message that you left for me here at the office. I'm very interested in meeting you and seeing what you've found. Let's see...you're obviously not in. Well, if you get this, I'd like to meet up with you sometime today if at all possible, as...well I'd like to meet with you soon. If you've found what you say you have, putting this off isn't a good idea. Either give me a call here at the office, or on my cell phone." Another round of rustling paper and a female voice speaking in the background, though Coke couldn't make it out. "Ok, I have to go. I'll try your cell phone. Like I said, this is very important, so, call me. Bye."  
  
"THURsday-November 8th..at...six-fourty-fiVE...a.m," the machine repeated, before emitting a shrill beep and clicking off. The beep sliced into Coke's brain and made him wince. The headache was definitely getting stronger. He momentarily thought about going to the bathroom and searching for some Tylenol, but thought the better of it. It would be against protocol and would disrupt the scene more than was necessary. Still, this had all the earmarks of being another big one. With some effort, Coke shrugged it off and turned around just in time to catch a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. The door. Someone was at the door. As if to confirm this fact, a sharp knock ripped through the still air in the apartment.  
  
Before his mind had time to register what was going on, Coke was up against the door, pistol out and at the ready. Slipping out the silencer, he slowly began to screw it onto the end of weapon, carefully listening for the slightest hint of sound on the other side of the door. With the silencer firmly in place, he waited.  
  
Another sharp knock ripped through Coke's skull, making him wince.  
  
"C'mon Christine, open up!" came the voice on the other side. Male voice, mid-20s. Coke placed his eye up to the peephole and glanced through.  
  
The man on the other side (a kid really, he couldn't have been more than 23 or so) was peering back at him through the hole, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on inside. Dressed in a faded demon jacket and with longish, greasy black hair, Coke immediately concluded this was either Kiviat's frat-boy boyfriend or roommate. Since the file hadn't mentioned a roommate and the apartment was only really big enough for one, Coke concluded it was the former. Although this greaseball might be useful in the future, Coke really had no desire to get caught red-handed inside the apartment. Coke knew he could probably handle this guy without too much difficulty, but it might compromise his mission. With any luck the guy would just give up an go awa-  
  
The man leaned forward once again and began to pound on the door.  
  
"C'mon Christine, open up!" he pleaded in the half-begging, half angry tone of a man who has had about enough of putting up with female games. "I know you're in there, I heard you checking your messages," he said again, his voice slightly louder and more frustrated with each word. Coke raised his pistol up again his chest and slid to the hinge-side of the door. He cursed himself for not having the foresight to lock the door after having broken in, but it was too late for that now. One way or another, this guy sounded like he had been rebuffed for the last time and was going to come in. Might as well make the best of a bad situation.  
  
As if to confirm his thoughts, the man spoke up again.  
  
"Ok, SCREW this Christie. I know you're in there. Ready or not, here I come!" Coke tensed his muscles, ready to strike. The doorknob turned and clicked, the door inching open. A rectangle of light crept across the floor. The man paused. Suddenly he seemed less sure of himself.  
  
"Christie? You in here?" he asked, much of the frustration gone. "C'mon Christine, I know you're in here. Where the hell are you?" Still Coke waited.  
  
The man tentatively put one foot through the door, and then the other. Through the crack in the doorjamb, Coke could just make out the man's pierced ear. Seemingly emboldened by the lack of a response he was getting, the man evidently decided to make a show of masculine bravado for the few people who might actually still be within earshot of the apartment.  
  
"Look Chris," he said, accentuating her name. "I'm sick and tired of you dodging me all the time. What I want to know is why the hell haven't you been answering my phone calls, huh?"  
  
He stepped forward another two inches. Almost there, Coke thought to himself.  
  
"I know what you're thinking, hun," the man continued, oblivious to the baleful presence a few inches away. "You think I'm clueless. Well, I'll tell you something or two, Christie. Jenny saw you-" He took another step forward, glancing around the room, evidently hoping to spot her at any moment "-holding hands with that guy down at the 'Leaf the other day. She freaking SAW you, Chris." He stepped forward and finally closed the door behind him without even looking back over his shoulder. This was it.  
  
"And if you think for one second that I'm going to put up with this kind of crap, you're-"  
  
Like a rattlesnake striking its prey, Coke whipped out from behind the doorjamb, bringing the butt of his pistol down full force at the base of the man's skull. It made contact with a dull, sickening thud that resounded in the small foyer.  
  
The man went down like a sack of bricks, banging his face on the hardwood floor as he hit the ground. Before he had even finished his sprawl, Coke was on top of the guy, jamming his pistol in the back of the man's head while reaching for a pair of flexi-cuffs hanging off his belt. He knew that he had hit the intruder pretty hard and as such shouldn't expect much of a fight out of him, but that he would soon recover and probably be mad as hell. Or scared out of his mind. One way or another, he had to be restrained before he had a chance to turn the tables on Coke.  
  
Coke's concern proved to be well founded. He had barely had time to feel the restraints snap home around the man's wrists before he started to come to his senses. Before he could say anything, Coke brought his gun down on the top of the man's head a second time. It would be painful, but Coke knew it was a solid spot and wouldn't knock him unconscious. It was just enough to make sure he had frat boy's full attention.  
  
"Shut your mouth, and don't say a word," Coke hissed directly into the man's left ear. The guy craned his neck and tried to look at Coke. His lips began to move and Coke hit him again. The man grunted. Coke flashed the gun in front of his face to make sure he could see it.  
  
"See this gun?" he asked, fully knowing the effect he was having on the unfortunate fellow. The man nodded. "If you say a single word, I will kill you. Understood?" Again, the man nodded. "Do you believe me?" Coke hissed, his voice low and menacing.  
  
"Y-yes..."  
  
"Good." Coke looked around. First things first. Priority one: secure the area. He put his hand to the back of the man's head and pushed it down to the floor.  
  
"I'm going to get off you now. Keep your face on the ground, and don't move a muscle." He felt the man's stocky body twitch underneath him, but he kept his face down. Ever so carefully, Coke stood up and backed up to the door, keeping his pistol trained on the back of frat boy's head. He reached up and rammed home the apartment's deadbolt, noticing with some distaste that his gloves were smeared with blood. Peering out the fisheye lens of the peephole, Coke satisfied himself that no one had heard the guy's tirade or the subsequent commotion.  
  
"Get up," he growled at the man. After a few moments of pathetic attempts with his hands cuffed behind his back, Coke took pity on him and walked up behind him, helping him up by one arm. The man emitted a small moan. "Shut up" was all the sympathy he got.  
  
With his pistol still leveled, Coke guided frat boy back against the wall of the living room, gesturing of him to sit down on the sofa against the wall. Coke could see anger flashing in the intruder's eyes and not a little fear, but he kept silent. Coke pulled up a chair that had been knocked aside in the commotion and sat down opposite the man. A small trickle of blood had begun to see down the back of the man's neck and down the side of his face, but if he hurt, he masked it remarkably well. After a few moments spent sizing up the fellow, Coke decided to break the silence.  
  
"What's your name?" he asked. Frat boy said nothing.  
  
"I didn't hit you in the mouth so answer the question," Coke continued, hoping to stimulate his reluctant accomplice. "Otherwise, I'll just shoot you in the head and be on my way, after I take a look at your driver's license."  
  
"Michael Sweeny," the man spat out, his words venomous.  
  
"Michael?" asked Coke. "That's a good name. Now Michael, I'm going to need your help for a little bit here. I-"  
  
"I won't help you, whoever the hell you are, maggot," Michael broke in, leaning forward in his anger. "What the hell are you doing here and who the hell are you?" Coke knew he had to rapidly regain control of the situation, before Sweeny got too uppity and decided to scream out for help. Coke wasn't a cruel man, but he was aware of the gravity of the situation.  
  
"Michael, Michael, Michael," he murmured, leaning in towards him. He caught his eye and held it, taking in their particular shade of green. Pupils dilated. That was a good sign. It mean that despite all his anger, Michael was probably not a little scared either. All he had to do was find his weak spot and exploit it. Physical pain didn't seem to have too much of an effect on him, but then again all men had their breaking points. What else? Perhaps he'd try the threat approach. What was the name Michael had dropped earlier? Jenny? He didn't know anything about this Jenny, but Michael didn't have to know that. It was worth a shot.  
  
"Michael," he whispered, using a perfectly calm and sympathetic, if deadly serious voice. "It doesn't have to be this way."  
  
"Be what way?" Michael shot back, his eyes defiant.  
  
"Well, Mike, that depends a lot on you," he replied. "Because I have a bit of a problem. I'm trying to locate your friend Christine Kiviat. However...something tells me you're not going to be very helpful with me."  
  
"Go to hell!"  
  
"You see? That's what I'm talking about. That kind of attitude won't get you anywhere." He raised his gun and ever so nonchalantly put it on Sweeny's kneecap. "It doesn't have to be this way, Mike" he whispered, his eyes still locked with Michael's, who was alternating looking down at his knees and back up at Coke. Good. He was starting to crack. He continued.  
  
"Did you know," he asked, his voice reflecting seemingly genuine interest, "that the kneecap is the most painful place to get shot in the entire human body?" His gun began tracing circles around the knee. "Now, usually, I've heard the kneecap breaks into about 7 or 8 pieces when it's him by a bullet, although 23 fractures or more are not unknown." Michael winced.  
  
"Of course, you may just be lucky and have the bullet graze off the actual kneecap, skitter around the leg, and punch out the back of the knee. Now, that also very painful, but it usually doesn't require as much hospitalization. You know, perhaps only 6 months instead of 18. But hey, it's alright. You tend to heal a whole lot faster when you're younger. Besides, I hear wheelchair technology has really improved in the last 20 years. Maybe you can save up and buy yourself one of those nice electric ones."  
  
He glanced up. A thin trickle of sweat was only now just beginning to drip into Michael's eyebrows and work its way down the bridge of his nose. Almost there.  
  
"I...I..." Michael began, but faltered.  
  
"But, that's for guys. Women, on the other hand, well...I dunno. There's just something about them, ya know?" he asked, trying to play into Michael's palpable sense of misogyny. It was complete crap but Michael would swallow it hook, line, and sinker. "They're just not as tough I guess. Not as hardy. Hell, if a girl got shot in the kneecap, I don't know if she'd survive. Even a young one like your friend....what did you say her name was? Janice or something?" Michael winced and looked away. Like a Doberman, Coke bit down hard.  
  
"Or even an older person like your mother, for example? A wound like that would never heal. She might not survive." Michael's head snapped back forward and locked onto Coke. The expression on the face was still one of hatred, but also one of shock, fear and concern. Perfect. Now Coke had him.  
  
"But, you see Michael, it doesn't have to be like that. I don't want to hurt anybody you know," Coke began, in the long-practiced spiel of alternately terrorizing the victim, reassuring him, and then making him turn the blame back on himself. "This isn't my choice. I really, really don't want to hurt anybody, Michael. Really, I don't. But you see, if you don't help me out," his voice softened and became more sympathetic, "I'm not going to have any choice. So, c'mon. Let's get this over with so we can all go home."  
  
Michael's eyes had gown misty. He looked away for a long time and was silent. Coke sat back in his chair. A few moments later, he turned back at Coke and seemed to have partially regained his composure.  
  
"What is it you want to know?" he asked, his voice quiet but raw.  
  
"That's my boy," Coke said, flashing an approving paternistic smile and removing the gun from Michael's knee, almost as if he had been embarrassed by it. However, he knew he had to move fast, before Mike figured out what had just happened and regained control. "Here's what I want to know."  
  
When he had told him, Michael started speaking in a low, hushed tone, barely stopping for breath. Coke asked few questions, halting him only when it was absolutely necessary in order to clarify a point or confirm a fact. Whenever the conversation wandered too far from the subject, he would gently guide Mike back on course, if only to maintain his tight hold on the subject. The information was more than adequate. Although Mike thought he knew precious little about Kiviat, in the process of his interview he recalled a vital fact of information. Apparently Kiviat was extremely fond of a particular coffeehouse in the greater Baltimore area. Although she didn't go there often, she had on more than one occasion told Mike during late-night talks that it was her "special spot" and the only place where she truly felt comfortable. Mike also divulged that twice after particularly violent fights, Kiviat had stormed away. She invariably returned a few hours later after he had called her on her cell phone to apologize, smelling of coffee. Coke concealed his interest in this fact and continued to press Sweeny.  
  
When Coke had determined that nothing further of use was to be gleaned from Michael Sweeny, he ended the interview. Thanking him, Coke reassured Sweeny that indeed no harm would come to his friends or his family. Looking incredibly relieved, Mike stood up and was in the process of turning around to let Coke cut his flexi-cuffs off when Coke shot him twice in the back of the head. Sweeny went down and Coke's silenced pistol puffed three more times into his sprawled body, just to be on the safe side.  
  
This was not the first time Coke had been forced to kill on the job, nor would it probably be his last. However for the first time in years he had started to feel a twinge of guilt. He knew the rules, and even if he hadn't pure survival instinct dictated that he kill Sweeny. Sweeny had seen his face, had known he was there, about would be not only be able to identify him, but link him to the crime. And that was unacceptable. Nor did Sweeny appear to be a particularly nice person. Coke had dealt with his kind before: the testosterone-driven muscleheads with the big hands who had nothing on which to vent their frustration that their glory days as captain of the high school football team were long over than the bottle and the girlfriend. Just the same, Coke did feel guilty. It was in a way his fault that Sweeny was dead: if he had locked the door then Sweeny never would have been able to get into the apartment, nor ended up dead. On the other hand, if Coke hadn't encountered Sweeny, he wouldn't know where to go next. Coke simply wrote it off as the price of doing business. He quickly and efficiently collected the five shell casings he had left at the scene of the crime in order to ensure that police ballistics would never be able to trace the weapon back to him. Slipping them into his pocket, he pulled out the spiral notepad and scribbled down the information as fast as he could while it was still fresh in his mind.  
  
When he was finished, he carefully stepped around Sweeny's body and after ensuring himself that the hallway was clear, he unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. He thumbed the doorknob lock and stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him to ensure that no one would randomly walk into the apartment and discover the body like Mike did. He had a feeling that nobody would notify the police about Mike's disappearance for at least a day or two. Not that it would matter in another 6 hours or so. Peeling off his gloves and turning them inside out to ensure none of Mike's blood got on him, he pulled out the shell casings and slipped them inside the gloves and then replaced the whole package in his pocket. He would burn the gloves and throw the shells in the Potomac as soon as he had the opportunity. Once he was certain everything was in order, he walked down the stairs and headed out the front door. 


	8. Chapter 8

Sorry this update has taken so long folks, things have been kind of busy here. In any case, this story is rapidly winding down to it's conclusion! Leave me feedback, and I'll love you forever! :)  
  
8:32 a.m.  
  
Coke sprinted the last 20 yards to his car, thumbing the keyless entry button on his key chain and slid into the driver's seat of his vehicle. He stifled a grunt of pain as he banged his ankle on the bottom of the door, before slamming it and turning the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life and he yanked the gear lever into drive, barely taking the time to pull the latch on the parking break before peeling out of his parking space at breakneck speed.  
  
The information session with Sweeny had been productive, but he was now approaching a critical juncture in the mission. Kiviat's trail, although not gone, was rapidly going cold. While this might not have mattered in a normal assignment, the clock was rapidly counting down the time before Kiviat made contact with Mulder and the objective was presumably lost. This would be an unacceptable outcome, both to Coke and the chief, and he knew that failure was rarely tolerated by the upper echelons of his agency. His first guess was that Kiviat might have gotten cold feet and begun the process of leaving the country, but fortunately her absconding with her computer and the sudden appearance of Sweeny at her apartment (coupled with a noticeable lack of signs of packing) suggested that Kiviat had made plans to meet with Mulder, presumably at this coffee shop, but that was not something that could be ascertained for sure. Fortunately, Coke had a few more tricks up his sleeve that would come in handy.  
  
When he stopped at the next intersection, Coke pulled his cell phone out and began dialing the first of what would be many calls in the process of tracking down his target. The ringer buzzed twice before a solid, intent voice on the other line picked up.  
  
"NSA, this is O'Grady, Electronic Communications, section A." O'Grady. The name didn't ring a bell with Coke, but it didn't matter. He had done this enough times to recite the litany by heart.  
  
"This is Agent Coke, requesting an epsilon-level cell phone trace on a subject named Kiviat, Catherine A. Priority is red, my clearance is Department of Energy Intel, 773-8011 Whiskey Foxtrot Bravo." There was a brief pause on the other end of the line accompanied by the sound of some keyboard clicks.  
  
"This is Catherine A. Kiviat, last known residence White Marsh, Maryland?"  
  
"That's affirmative." The light turned to green and Coke eased out into the intersection, remembering to buckle his seatbelt as he did so. Getting pulled over now would not be a good thing. "I'm hoping that a certain Agent Maxey might have already red flagged her for a satellite sniffer."  
  
Another brief pause followed. When O'Grady next spoke, his voice had assumed the satisfied, self-confident tone reserved for mail order clerks who are three steps ahead of their customers. "That's an affirmative, Agent Coke. Kiviat was placed on a trap and trace, top priority sniffer list at about 4:30 this morning. It doesn't say who ordered it though."  
  
Coke felt he had a fairly strong idea of who might have ordered the trace on Kiviat, but he wasn't about to drop any names. He thanked Agent O'Grady for his time, provided the proper clearance number, and pushed the red "end" button on his cell phone. A smile slowly crept across Coke's unshaven face. Contrary to popular belief, Coke had been taught from day one of training that all conversations could be intercepted, be they electronic, oral, or snail mail. Cellular phones, far from being the exception, were the rule. By their very definition, cellular phones had to be mobile in order to be useful, and as such were forced to rely on a fairly insecure method of transmitting voices: right through the air, up into outer space, where they were then caught on satellites, rerouted, and then sent back to earth to reach the telephone of the other party. This by itself provided ample opportunities for any semi-decent operative to intercept a nearby conversation, but the true benefits of cell phone interception technology could not fully be understood until one received a red-level clearance with the NSA.  
  
The NSA, if left to its own devices, would probably be quite capable of intercepting and monitoring fully half of the cellular phone conversations on the North American continent at any one time, but due to manpower restrictions (and once again Coke was amazed at the advances of technology since the days when he was in college), they were forced to drastically reduce that number to a few thousand select cases on any given day. Fortunately, a certain someone had seen fit to add Kiviat's name to the NSA's most recent list of monitored persons. As such, the NSA (and of course, Agent Stephen Coke), now had full access to the NSA's finest cell phone sniffer package tailored specifically to Christine Kiviat, including (but not limited to) recordings of all conversations since 4:30 in the morning when the sniffer had been put into place, the ability to check Kiviat's voicemail at will, and of course, a 30-second pinpoint of her last known position every time she plugged into an internet outlet with her phone. Life was grand.  
  
Coke made a right into the first side street he saw and killed the engine of his car. Within a few short moments, he would know exactly everything that had transpired between her and Agent Mulder. But first, he needed a few minutes to reorganize his thoughts.  
  
Coke took a moment and ran his fingers through his hair. It was thick and somewhat greasy. He absently remembered that he hadn't had a chance to shower this morning, having been called into HQ at an ungodly hour and getting to work right off the bat. Heck, he hadn't even had time to shave. One way or another, he looked like a mess and was starting to lose his focus. If he wanted to grab Kiviat he was going to move fast, but at the same time, Coke also realized that his judgment would start to become impaired the more he focused on the job. What he needed was a quick break and a shave. Glancing up, he noticed a 7-Eleven convenience store just across the street, its garish Orange and Green sign beckoning to him, complete with the promise of the best slurpies in town. It was worth a shot. Coke started the engine, put the car into reverse, and backed out onto the street, before turning into the store's parking lot.  
  
Coke couldn't have spent more than 8 minutes in the store, but it felt as if he had gotten five years of his life back. Once he had made it past the door with its jangling bell and pasted-on cigarette ads, he had gone straight to the toiletry section and had bought himself a disposable razor, a pack of Alka-Seltzer, and a cup of coffee. He had then gone directly to the back, quickly breached the "Employees Only" door, and locked himself in the bathroom where he shaved, washed his face, and swallowed his Alka-Seltzer. All in all, Coke felt like a new man as he stepped out of the back room and onto the main floor of the store. His coffee had now cooled to an acceptable level and he began the final element of his usual morning ritual, gulping down the hot, black drink as he headed back to his car. Damn that felt good! It was time to kick some ass.  
  
Coke fired up his cell phone immediately after hopping back into his Mercury and punched in the clearance code allowing him to gain access to Kiviat's sniffer package. He decided to follow the trail in chronological order beginning at 4:30 and working his way forward. There was very little to go on, but thankfully it was enough. Although the sniffer hadn't been put into place in time to catch Kiviat's initial phone call to Mulder's office, he was able to intercept the call Mulder had made to her cell phone at 6:49 am, just shortly after Mulder had left the message on Kiviat's apartment phone at 6:45. Coke punched "1" on his cell phone and listened to the conversation.  
  
"NSA: call intercepted at 6:49 a.m.," read the vaguely androgynous computer voice that was the spokesperson for all NSA automated conversations. A short beep followed.  
  
"Hello?" began the first voice on the recording. It was female and sounded somewhat off-balance. Coke immediately labeled it as Christine A. Kiviat's.  
  
"Hey, is this Christine?" responded the other voice on the recording. This one was male. Coke immediately recognized it as the same voice left on Kiviat's answering machine in her apartment. It had to be the esteemed agent Mulder's. After a brief pause, Kiviat answered.  
  
"Yeah, this is Christy. Who is this?"  
  
"This is Special Agent Fox Mulder, with the Bureau? You left a message for me early this morning on my office phone."  
  
"Oh. Yeah. That was me. I didn't think you'd be at the office this early."  
  
"Yeah," answered Mulder in a sheepish voice. "They work us long hours." A longer pause. "So... your message was kind of vague: 'There's something I really need to show you, but I don't know if I'm safe, or who I can trust?'" No response on the part of Christine. Mulder continued. "You DID leave that message, right Christy?"  
  
"Yes I did, " answered Kiviat, sounding very tired. "Look, I don't know really what I'm doing. It's kind of complicated, hard to understand."  
  
"Let me try to understand Christy, tell me what's going on. If you're in trouble, we'll try to help you out."  
  
"Well...I don't really know what's going on. Maybe it's nothing. But I just thought I should be safe and tell someone what's going on." She took a deep breath. "I'm going to cut right to the chase. I'm a hacker. Last night I was poking around some top-security government systems, hoping to try to find something interesting, ya know? I wasn't trying to make any trouble or anything, I just figured I'd try to get in just to see if I could. Do you understand?"  
  
"Sure," replied Mulder, his tone soothing. "Please go on."  
  
"Well, I know I broke the law," resumed Kiviat, her voice faltering. "Like I said, I wasn't trying to get anyone in trouble, but...I guess I just wasn't thinking." (You sure as hell weren't, thought Coke to himself.)  
  
"In any case, I got in early this morning and just sort of panicked, ya know? Red flags were going off everywhere, I knew I was about 30 seconds away from being tracked. So, I just grabbed the first couple of files that I found and high-tailed it out of there as fast as I could."  
  
"Okay," replied Mulder. "So far you've admitted to me that you've just committed a felony. Why are you telling me this?"  
  
"Because of what I found in the files," replied Kiviat, her voice quiet, but assured. "I wasn't able to decode them entirely, but I did manage to extract a couple of the pictures in the file. They're really blurry, but..." she trailed off.  
  
"But?" asked Mulder, clearly interested.  
  
"Mr. Mulder, I'm scared of what those pictures show. I don't know if they're real or not or what, but the fact that I found them on a top-secret government computer system really shakes me to the core. I'm scared and I figured I needed to show them to somebody. My ex-boyfriend belongs to several online chat communities that deal with weird stuff like aliens and UFOs and stuff, and while I don't really pay much attention to that, I have heard people make references to you in the past. Your name just stuck in my head I guess, so I felt that you were the first person I'd call, considering the fact that you are a cop and all..."  
  
Coke was stunned. So, the bitch had managed to decode some of the information after all! So much for the chief's assurances of their absolute encryption. When Mulder spoke again, his voice was intense.  
  
"I want to meet with you as soon as possible Christy. It's very important that I see what you found right away. Where can we meet?" Another brief silence followed. Kiviat appeared to be doing some calculations in her head.  
  
"There's a Dunken Doughnuts store off of Route 7 in Sewllesburg, about an hour north of Baltimore. I'm heading there now. Meet me as soon as you can.  
  
"Ok. I'm not going to be able to leave DC until at least 7:30, so I should be able to make it by 9:30, 10:00 at the latest. I'll find you there."  
  
"Ok. Thanks a lot Mr. Mulder, I'll feel a lot better after I get this off of my hands."  
  
"No problem, Christy. See you soon." With that, the conversation ended.  
  
Coke quickly hit the red END button on his cell phone and tossed it onto the driver's side seat. He check his watch. It read 8:56. Damn. That gave him just over a half hour to get Kiviat, get the data, and get out before Mulder showed up.  
  
Adrenaline coursed through Coke's body as the thrill of the chase, as old as mankind itself, took over. He could do this, no doubt about it. But, it was going to be tight. No time for backup, no time for mistakes, no time for contingency plans, or overwatch teams, or snipers, or black helicopter extraction. He was down to the wire: one final bluff before the data was lost forever and the mission was deemed a failure. If there was one thing all the years of Coke's training had ingrained into his brain until it was a fundamental as breathing itself, it was that there was no failure. Fight, die, but the mission was priority number one. He didn't need the threats of any Marlboro Man to assure him of that: it was part of his very nature. And with that final thought, Coke pulled out into traffic.  
  
OK guys, this is only gonna last 1, 2 more parts at the most. I hope you're as excited about this story's imminent conclusion as I am! 


	9. Chpater 9 and Epilogue

Sewellsville Maryland, 9:06 a.m.

The small town of Sewellsville Maryland had probably seen better days, but not recently. What once must have been a decent-sized industrial village had by now eroded into a tired, gritty little village, the likes of which littered the Maryland/DC area. The parking lot of the Dunken Doughnuts was remarkably empty considering the hour, and for that Coke felt a brief surge of gratitude. While the lot was not big and it was close to a main road, the store itself was nestled snugly off to the side, obscured by the shadow of a boarded-up industrial building. A few hundred paces behind the store lay a thin line of trees, which while not exactly a forest in and of itself, was sufficient to bar the casual observer from seeing beyond their piney curtain. The occasional car drove past, its wiper blades giving a desultory scrub every thirty or so seconds to ward off the slight drizzle which had picked up in the last hour, but other than that there were no signs of life. The store's sign was lit but it was hard to make out the inside between the curtains and the plastered advertisements pasted onto the windows. Just the same, the building reeked of tension and a sense of foreboding. This was certainly the right spot.

Coke parked his car discreetly a few blocks over on a street which might have at one point been the main thoroughfare through the town, but was now little more than a 25 mph speed trap in the back woods of the state. Coke killed the engine and cracked his knuckles. All appeared to be set. The one last thing he needed to do was to inform the chief of what was going down. After a short moment of hesitation, Coke hit the "recall" button on his phone and dialed the encrypted number to the chief.

The phone rang three times and was in the midst of its fourth ring when the line clicked on.

"Coke." The tone, while carefully even in tone and sound, betrayed the unmistakable crackle of power beneath its surface. "...What is the situation?" Coke wasted no time getting straight to the point.

"Sir, I'm in position. I have located the target and the alpha. I'm ready to move and just need the green light." There was silence on the other end of the line, and for a moment Coke thought the connection had been interrupted.

"I've been monitoring your progress closely Stephen," the voice resumed carefully, betraying nothing. "While you have done a remarkable job considering the constraints of the mission, I can't help but wonder if you're really up for this last segment." Coke felt, rather than saw, the smile at the other end of the line. Was the old bastard taunting him? Or did he really think Stephen had come all this way to go home empty-handed? His anger was piqued.

"Listen, sir," he resumed, hoping to make his disappointment known. He was damned if he was going to let the old man think he was just going to give up. "I have the target acquired. All I need to do now is to take it down."

"Don't be ridiculous, Stephen. You have no backup, no support. You're on your own and before anyone can get there, the scenario will be over."

"Sir are you seriously suggesting that I let this go, when the target is right in front of me? After all this work I've put in? I'm sorry sir, but I respectfully have to say-"

"Your thoughts on this are unnecessary and unimportant, Stephen," the voice on the other end of the line cut him off. "And," (this part sounded almost grudging) "we don't have a choice. The die is cast. Get the files, kill Kiviat, and return to the reservation. Those are your final orders."

Not for the first time in his life, Coke was exasperated. Here it was again: yet another conspiracy within a conspiracy. How many times had he had to put up with this kind of crap from his superiors? How many times had he been asked to kill "for the good of the country," without knowing who he was killing or why? How much had he been forced to sacrifice in order to get the job done? He had no personal life, no family, no children, no real friends. Hell, Coke wasn't even his real name. He was just 35 years old and already he job was starting to take its toll on him physically as well as emotionally. He was going gray and he wasn't sleeping well at nights.

And to make matters worse, the headaches were growing more frequent. While they had only been minor a few years ago and had come and gone fairly easily, more and more often Coke has beginning to feel that there was something more to his physical state than "just another headache." If he ever got around to it, he was going to talk to the doctor about it. Not the normal, friendly yet strange Doctor Ridolphi from the department of Energy. No, if he got out of this one alive, Coke promised he would go find a real doctor and get a second opinion. Would the chief find out? Well, almost certainly. But at least he would have peace of mind. But before all that, the job. He flashed back to the reality of him sitting in the car. He started to mumble a brief acknowledgement to the chief when the line went dead. So much for a little civility from the brass.

Stephen closed his phone and slide it back into his pocket. He popped the trunk from the inside of the car and got out, making a mental inventory of everything he would need for this last little part of the assignment. First and foremost his pistol. The silencer was still attached. Instinctively he popped the magazine out of his weapon and checked to make sure it was still loaded, but it was a move which was devoid of any real meaning: he knew it still had 8 rounds left over from earlier in the morning when he had killed Sweeny. He reholstered the weapon and pulled his gray suit coat over his waist to cover his best friend. Next he felt around the back of his waist and manually made sure he still had the two fresh clips in his belt pouch which he had put in there earlier in the morning. Finally, Coke stepped to the back of the car and opening up the trunk, pulled a small black plastic case towards him.

Coke was perfectly aware of the fact that it was well within the chief's power to make much of the evidence from the soon-to-be crime scene disappear or be altered in order to ensure that this senseless killing of a 20-something computer geek would never be solved, but it still didn't hurt to take chances. While he had been able to get away with wearing gloves inside Kiviat's apartment due to the fact that it was deserted, he was going to have a very hard time simply walking into a restaurant wearing white latex and not arouse suspicion. As such, it was time to whip out one of his least favorite and yet most useful tools: X-29 fingerprint jelly. While he hated the smell and the tingling sensation it left on his finger pads, Coke also understood how it was truly one of the miracles of science: a product which actually dissolved away fingerprints within seconds and was virtually undectible to all but the most sophisticated forensic tests. Once he had applied a thin film of the gel and his hands and given it a minute to sink in, Coke replaced the kit and slammed the trunk. He checked his watch. It was 9:12.

It only took Coke a few minutes to make his was across the street and into the coffee shop. The sign at the front of the building was on and as such the store was open, but even as he approached Coke discovered that he was still unable to see the inside of the store. The door chimes tinkled as he walked in, presumably signaling his presence to the people inside.

The interior of the restaurant was fairly dark, for although it was daylight outside and interior lights were unnecessary, the overcast sky cast a gray light over the scene. The smell of coffee was strong and rows upon rows of doughnuts sat behind the glass counter. No one was at the counter and the person tending it either did not hear or pretended not to hear Coke's entry. As far as he was concerned, that was just perfect. As Coke's eyes adjusted to the dim light he was able to discern that the dining area was deserted, except for a single, diminutive figure hunched at a table in the back of the room drinking coffee. At long last he finally set his eyes upon his target.

Coke briskly made his way up between the chairs and headed directly for Kiviat's booth in the back corner. She had evidently heard the sound of the door chime for she perked up and stared at Coke as he approached. Coke effectuated his best smile and looked her in the eye, all the while quickly summing up the physical dimensions of the scenario.

Kiviat was a petite, physically unassuming person. While she was pretty in an absentminded, nerdy sort of way, it was clear that the last 24 hours had been hard on her. Her complexion was pallid and there were large bags under her eyes. The torn bags of sugar on the table suggested that she had been there for at least an hour and that she was clearly anticipating her meeting with Mulder. He had trouble making out too much of what she had with her under the table, but it appeared that she had brought a laptop (or at least, her laptop case) with her. She looked at him tentatively, a mixture of suspicion and relief washing over her face.

"Hey, Christine?" Coke began, flashing her his 100 megawatt smile. "How're you doing? I'm agent Mulder." He stuck out his hand as soon as he was within range.

"Hi," replied Kiviat in a tired voice, tentatively reaching out to shake his hand. Coke took it and gave it a firm squeeze, noticing at the same time that it was ice cold.

"Do you mind if I have a seat?" Coke continued, while at the same time discreetly glancing about the store to ensure himself that there were no security cameras present.

"Please do," she replied, sounding more eager now than she had seemed a few moments earlier. Coke pulled out one of the chairs and slid quietly into the seat.

"So..." she began, evidently unsure of how to proceed. Coke immediately came forward and took control of the conversation.

"Look Christine, you're obviously had a pretty hard day. I am very sympathetic and totally understand. However, you're in luck. I spoke with the attorney general's office this morning right after I got off the phone with you. It turns out that he's willing to not file any charges at all against you, so long as we get the information back in one piece." It was a wildly implausible scenario of course, but Coke hoped that Kiviat would take the bait and simply hand over the package, eager to be rid of it. At first Kiviat showed no emotion and Coke thought that he had blown it, when suddenly her features softened.

"Thanks so much agent Mulder," she began in a heavy, tear-laden voice. "You don't know how much this means to me. I never meant to do anything wrong, it's just that...those things that I found. Those terrible things..." He eyes darted out the window and then went back to Coke's face. "I just want to make sure it gets taken care of."

Coke smiled and added what he hoped sounded like an extra comforting layer to his voice. "Don't worry Christine," he said, his soft eyes locked on hers. Slowly, his right hand crept its way down towards his waist and the gun he had secured there. Almost there... "Now, if you could just give me the package and I'll be on my way."

Kiviat nodded her head for a moment and then reached under the table. She started to pull out the black rectangular case and lifted it onto her knees. Perfect, it was almost there. Coke tightened his grip on his pistol and slowly eased it out of its holster.

"By the way, agent Mulder, I was just wondering..." Kiviat's sentence snapped Coke attention back to her face. "I'm sorry to hear about agent Slevin. Your partner? I hope she gets well soon." Kiviat flashed a timid smile at Coke and slid the case across the table ever so carefully. It was almost within his reach.

"Oh," he replied distractedly, hoping to get it over with as soon as possible. "Yeah, I'm sorry about agent Slevin too. But the doctors tell me she'll be back on the job in no time." As abruptly as it had started, Kiviat's motion abruptly came to a halt. Coke noticed how her grip had suddenly tightened around the case's handle and her pupils had dilated. It had just been there for the briefest flash, but he had caught it, and he knew she knew he had seen the look in her eyes: surprise, loathing, and most of all fear. He had blown his cover.

"That's funny..." began Kiviat, her words coming out slowly, as if she were trying to talk her way around a difficult bit of Shakespeare. "I though your partner's name was Scully, not Slevin. I also didn't know there was anything wrong with her." The game was up and they both knew it. It was only a matter of who made the first move. "I'm going to need to see some identification please, sir," Kiviat continued, her blue eyes fixed on his. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. And then, suddenly, the world exploded.

Kiviat pulled the bag back towards her as fast as she could, while Coke spontaneously made a grab for it with his left hand, unholstering his pistol with his right as he did so. For a moment the bag stretched precariously between the two of them, Kiviat huddling on the corner as she pulled the bag desperately with both hands, Coke struggling to bring his pistol to bear on her.

At the first sight of the weapon Kiviat let out an ear-piercing shriek and loosened her grip on the bag. "OH MY GOD! PLEASE DON'T SHOOT" she yelled, bringing up one of her hands to shield her face while doggedly refusing to let go with the other. Coke leveled the pistol and was about to pull the trigger when his conscious thought was interrupted by another important sound: that of the shop door chime tingling and a loud, authoritarian voice (the kind which could only belong to a police officer or a military type).

"What the HELL is going on here?" boomed out the loud voice, sending alarm bells ringing through Coke's head. Coke looked over and fixed his eyes on the tall, beefy silhouette standing in the doorway. True to form, it wore a dark blue uniform and a gun on its hip. At this point Coke's training took over. He understood that often in situations such as these, it was imperative to stall and confuse the intruder as long as possible in order to gain time and gain a further advantage. His gun was already out, the cop's was not. He was in the midst of a coordinated and well-planned operation, the cop was probably just getting some doughnuts for his morning shift. He knew what was going on, the cop didn't. However, if he was going to make this work, the next few seconds were critical.

"Is George out in the car?" Coke asked, putting a look of faint surprise on his face as if he had just been interrupted in the middle of some slightly embarrassing activity such as sticking a wad of gum under a table. Who George was he didn't have a clue, but then again neither did the cop. With any luck this would cause the cop to second guess himself long enough for him to deliver the fatal shot. Kiviat has stopped struggling, clearly as surprised by this latest turn of events as the police officer.

"Is George still with the car, or did he go round back?" asked Coke again, his eyes trained on the officer for the slightest hint of movement while quietly bringing his gun up to his side along the center line of his body, invisible to the cop from that angle. The cop hesitated for the briefest moment, still unsure of the situation. If this had been a simple mugging he would undoubtedly expected Coke to simply open fire at the first sign of a uniform. Instead, here he was being confronted by a well-dressed, slightly graying man who was asking him where "George" was. Was this some sort of joke? Had he perhaps stumbled across a movie set and the actors had mistaken him for one of the extras?

"The reason I ask," began Coke again, almost in position, "is because I'm a federal agent. I'm in the middle of arresting this wanted felon here and I was wondering if George-" before he got another word out, Coke's muscle instincts took over. Almost without thinking he saw his right hand whip the pistol up into the air and heard the distant pffts as the first of three silenced rounds spat out of his weapon towards the hapless police officer. Perhaps the cop had caught the faintest pre-flicker of motion in Coke's arm for it appeared that he had begun the slow process of reaching for his pistol when the first of the rounds impacted into his chest cavity, tearing a neat little holes in the soft tissue of his flesh before exiting out the man's back. The cop lurched backwards, his hands flailing and gesticulating wildly as he backpedaled, tripping over his own feet and going down hard on the linoleum floor.

Before the last of the brass casings from Coke's weapon had hit the floor, the lower, instinctive portions of his brain were immediately shifting into re-acquire mode as his nervous system fired its feverish signals down the length of his arm. Coke spun on his right heel, his gun barrel midway up the length of his body and almost on target when the coffee hit his face. The world when a searing red and Coke screamed out in pain as the liquid heat crashed into his face with all the intensity of a lava tsunami. He could almost feel the nerve endings sizzle beneath his wet skin. Amongst the absurdity of it all, one of the signals his central cortex felt relevant and decided to forward to his higher processing capacities: mocha with a hint of chocolate.

Coke barely had the presence of mind to not drop his weapon in the confusion. The fact that this mousy, petite computer geek had gotten the drop on him and physically wounded him was almost beyond his comprehension. Through all the pain and rage which filled him, he couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of admiration for Kiviat. There was some steel deep down in this girl somewhere. Coke crushed the feeling and brought his left hand up, clutching at his face and trying to wipe the rapidly-cooling beverage off of his face. Instinctively he knew the damage was largely negligible. Hardly fatal, probably not even cosmetic. The pain though, the pain was crucial. It blinded him, enraged him, caused him to lose focus and momentarily disrupted his continuous cycle of observation and preparation. For the briefest glimmer of a moment, he felt that Kiviat might make good her escape. She almost did.

Kiviat was out of her chair in an instant and with an agility completely out of character with Coke's initial assessment, drew the laptop case instinctively closer to her before dropping low and snapping a kick into his right ankle, sweeping his feet off the ground. Coke, already half-blinded and reeling, went down hard. A primal warning screamed out at him. His sharp reflexes allowed him to draw his head in and roll away before he crushed his head on a nearby table, but it was a close thing. Coke had by now cleared most of the coffee off of his face and despite the smarting, boiling pain which sizzled at every nerve ending, he was rapidly getting a grip on himself and preparing to take the target down.

Stephen hit the ground and instantly rolled about ninety degrees. By this point Kiviat had cleared the table and, laptop in hand, was beginning her dash down the cluttered aisles of chairs, tables, and countertops. Brining his sleeve to his face, Coke made one final quick brushing gesture to clear his vision before sending his legs out in a wide arc, hoping to catch Kiviat's ankles and trip her up. He was quick but he had taken too long. Instead of landing a good, solid hit on her ankle, he was only able to graze her with the toe of his shoe, barely nicking her. For a brief moment Coke's hope surged as she seemed to stumble uncertainly forward, knocking into a table and sending a sugar jar careening, but it was only for an instant and she quickly regained her balance, continuing her headlong flight towards the door.

Having been denied once, Coke recovered from his sweep and rolled over onto his back, bringing his gun to bear between his splayed legs. Time had by now assumed the consistence of molasses, bringing every detail into focus: the sound of Christine's steps echoing off of the linoleum floor, the by now tepid wetness of the spilled coffee on the floor creeping up into his jacket, and tinkle of sugar as it fell to the ground grain by grain. This was his last chance to make things right.

Christine had by now gotten a few meters away from the door. She quickly sidestepped the fallen officer, just managing to avoid the slowly growing crimson puddle in her way. Six meters...five. Coke brought the weapon up, drawing a bead on the rapidly diminishing figure down the corridor. Coke was a good shot; he routinely put four out of five rounds through Washington's portrait on a one dollar bill at 50 feet. They were in relatively close quarters and as such Coke felt confident he could hit a target of Kiviat's size with his eyes closed. The pain in his face had now settled to a dull (if angry) whine and he was regaining his composure. He had been a surgeon with smaller calibers back at the academy and time had not deteriorated any of his skill.

Christine's reflection was now visible in the glass paneling of the doorway. Her hair tie had come off and her locks flowed gently behind her in the air-conditioned room, assisted by the forces of inertia as she sprinted the last few feet towards her freedom. Her right arms shot forwards, her palm out, anticipating contact with the door bar and the strong shove which would push her out into the gray, wet world and (presumably) safety. Coke paused for a moment, gazing down the length of the barrel. A more poetic man might have paused to appreciate the montage, for there was an undeniably savage beauty in the scene: the titanium silencer glinting in the low light, the jarring contrast of blood on white linoleum, the almost spiritual intersection of the forces of random and purpose in the layout of chairs and tables around the room. But Coke was not a particularly poetic man, nor a spiritual one. He was businesslike, driven, and efficient and acted as such. He squeezed the trigger with the pad of his right index finger, exhaled, paused, and depressed the trigger completely in a model display of military firearms training.

Orange light spat out of the end of the silencer, completely incongruous with the muffled whisper of sound accompanying it. Coke felt a slight pop of pressure against his extended arms and the gun pushed back against him for a fraction of a second. The round caught Kiviat in mid-stride between the shoulder blades. Her body, now no longer in control of itself, jolted forward under the impact of the bullet and sent her sprawling forward. She fell face down just shy of the door, close enough for a few droplets of her blood to splatter up against the dirty glass.

Coke remained motionless for a moment, before sitting fully upright. Keeping his pistol trained on Kiviat he stood up and glanced around. If there was an employee in the store, Coke had not seen him. He carefully, purposefully walked towards the counter and, assuring himself there was no one cowering behind it (he didn't have time to check the back room), he surveyed the scene. It was clean, or at least as clean as a double homicide could be. Coke mentally rechecked the sequence of events and carefully collected the four shell casings which had been ejected from his still-smoking pistol. Not that it mattered much anyway: the gun was already too hot and had the blood of too many people on it. Although he was 99% positive no one would ever be able to trace it back to him (no serial number, no fingerprints, no shell casings, not a standard-issue weapon), it never hurt to be 100%.

Just the same, Coke knew he had to move. It didn't make sense that there wasn't an employee at the store. Sure, he might be out back taking a cigarette break, but that seemed unlikely as he would have come running at the first sign of commotion. More likely, he might have run to call the cops. Hell, if he stuck around long enough Coke knew the cops would eventually send a cruiser to check on their unresponsive patrolman. One way or another, it was time to move.

Coke dropped the casings into his pocket, holstered his weapon, and made his way to the door. When he reached Kiviat's body, he bent over and picked up the laptop case. Her grip on it was firm, but Coke was able to wrench it free without too much difficulty. He tried not too look too closely at the body; enough to tell that she was dead. He took a few seconds to unzip the case. Inside was the glossy black case of her laptop. It crossed Coke's mind for a moment that perhaps the data was not in the laptop or that she had somehow been able to switch it out, but that seemed unlikely. Kiviat's eyes had been too genuine to have been lying to him as he had impersonated Mulder: they were too relieved, too eager to get rid of the case. And, one way or another, it was not his problem anymore. He had been told to get the data, if the data was not in the laptop, it would at least tell him where the data had gone to, and that would be a job for someone else. Coke checked one more item off of his mental list and, rezipping the bag, stepped out the door.

The cool outside air hit Coke like a spray of fine mist, clearing his lungs. The drizzle had stopped and a slight breeze had picked up, snapping at Coke's gray blazer. He maintained a brisk but steady pace, for he knew the first thing which would draw attention to him would be if he were to give in to panic and start to run. Not that there was much panic there to be had, Coke had already done this far too many times before. He passed the parked police car sitting in the lot, near the door. Its motor was off, which suggested that the cop had indeed only come in to get some food and as such was not responding to a call or any hint of trouble. Looking up and down the deserted street, Coke saw no one coming. He broke into a quick trot to get across the quiet road and once on the opposite sidewalk resumed his walk towards the car.

Stephen saw his car a few short minutes later. It was exactly as he had left it, no obvious signs of tampering. He hadn't expected any. He walked up to the vehicle and manually unlocked the door. In the distance he heard the sizzle of tires heralding the entry of another car into this rather secluded ally. He looked up. The vehicle in question was a dark blue Ford Crown Victoria, government issue (he could tell by the second antenna), DC plates, looked like an '88 or '89. There were two passengers but he had trouble making them out behind the windshield. One appeared to be a man, the other, on the passenger's side, a woman. Coke nonchalantly slid the case onto his car's passenger seat. They were obviously suits, probably feds, but only possibly cruising for him. He didn't hear any sirens in the background, which meant the local authorities probably hadn't been tagged yet. In any case, it was best to be wary, but not overtly hostile. If he made a wrong move now, he could either have his cover blown or more blood on his hands in one day. He preferred neither.

Coke bent down and pretended to have dropped his keys under the car seat. He checked the reflection of the approaching car in his watch. It seemed to be slowing down. Coke "retrieved" his keys and sat in the car, preparing to drive away (or evade if necessary). The car pulled to a stop next to him and the passenger side window rolled down. Upon closer examination, Coke saw that he had indeed been right about the passengers. Male driver, female passenger. The male was a ruggedly good-looking individual with a square jaw and brown hair. His suit matched the color of the car. His companion was a pretty redheaded woman in a burgundy suit with a white lacey shirt underneath. She had an atlas of Maryland open on her lap and was wearing a hint of lilac perfume. Coke could tell by the subtle bulges under their jackets that they were armed. Probably FBI. The woman looked at him and smiled. Coke smiled back.

"Excuse me," she began, her voice betraying a slight twinge of exasperation. "We seem to be a little lost. Do you happen to know if there's a Dunken Doughnuts around here?" A wave of different emotions washed over Coke. Anxiety, fear, curiosity, and perhaps most of all, relief. These had to be the esteemed agents Mulder and Scully. It was perfect. The final piece of the random equation had just introduced itself. Coke felt like laughing out loud, both from nervousness and genuine pleasure.

Coke kept his face friendly but his tone level. "Aw, I'm sorry, but no," he replied, his voice warm but his eyes cold. "I'm not from around here, I'm just visiting a friend." Mulder looked sheepish. If Scully was disappointed, she did a remarkable job of hiding it.

"Oh...that's ok," she answered. "I'm sure we'll find it. It's gotta be around here somewhere." She looked over at Mulder who nodded at her. She nodded back and then gave Coke a quick thank you as she rolled up her window. Mulder might have said thanks too, but if he did Coke didn't here him. The car slowly resumed its crawl down the alley. Five seconds later it reached the end and made a right turn onto the main road in the opposite direction of the store. As soon as they rounded the corner, Coke closed the door and started the car.

Although Mulder and Scully would be the first on the scene of the grisly double homicide at the Sewellsville Dunken Doughnuts by the time they had alerted the local authorities Coke was well on his way back to Washington.

The Tidal Basin, Washington, 11:02 p.m.

Although all of the parks in the District of Columbia were technically closed after dark, in practice this was rarely enforced. What with all of the nocturnal tours of the city, street festivals, tourists, monuments, gardens, parks, historical buildings and legions of homeless people (not to mention the fact that the city was in many ways the center of the world), the city never really slept, even by American standards. Tonight however, the Tidal Basin was largely deserted. Coke sat on a park bench underneath the branches of one of the many Cherry Blossom trees which dotted the area, a gift from the Empire of Japan to the people of the United States, donated June 12th, 1907. In the distance Coke could see the illuminated silhouette of the Washington Monument. The only sound disturbing him was the lap of water against the basin's walls.

Coke was sharp, yet he still failed to hear the man approach him. However, the click of a cigarette lighter quickly brought him back to his senses. The dark figure slid in next to him on the bench, exhaling as he did so. The warm smell of tobacco filled the air. By now Coke knew better than to expect civility from any conversation with the boss.

"Do you have it?" the boss asked, taking another puff on his cigarette, its lit end winking in the darkness like the eye of a slumbering dragon.

"Yes."

"You're sure?"

"No." The boss' eyebrows arched. "I retrieved the laptop from the subject's house. I

have every reason to believe the data is in there. If it isn't, it will at least tell the tech guys at the NSA where the data went. It was the best I could do under the circumstances."

The chief seemed to be sizing Coke up in the darkness, although Coke couldn't imagine what he thought he saw. After a few moments the chief snubbed the cigarette out on the bench. He reached into his shirt pocket and produced another from a crumpled pack of Marlboros.

"You did well Stephen," he said at last, fingering his lighter. "To be honest, many of us didn't think you could." A dozen questions sprang up in Coke's mind, but he shoved them back down. The man lit his cigarette and, replacing the pack and the lighter, resumed his smoking.

"Did you?"

The chief didn't even look at him. He seemed to be lost in the beauty of the Washington Monument. For a long time he said nothing. Finally, the chief stood up and took the laptop bag, not even bothering to check to see what was inside; he knew better than that.

"Good job Stephen, I'll be in touch."

As he walked away, Stephen was un able to resist the impulse any longer. "How much longer does this have to go on chief?" he asked the rapidly disappearing figure, his words drifting through the darkness. The chief's reply was simple.

"It goes on as long as it has too, Stephen. As long as it has to."

Stephen stood still, his unfocused eyes glancing over the surface of the water. he needed a drink. He needed a shower. Most of all, he needed a good night's sleep. His emotions were shot, but he was too tired to deal with it. Tomorrow would bring relief and somewhere, Coke knew that this was just one more crazy day in a life that was full of them. And as the silence of the night crept over the scene, the last sound to interrupt the lapping of the waves was that of shell casings and a single pistol splashing into the basin's murky depths, and of a single set of footsteps echoing off the pavement.

That's all folks! I hope you liked it. Please R&R and feel free to contact me personally at Thanks!


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